A resource companion to "Community-Owned Businesses: How Communities Become Entrepreneurs" (Main Street Now, April 2010).

Resources for community-owned businesses

This blog is a companion to the article, "Community-owned Businesses: How Communities Become Entrepreneurs," published in Main Street Now, April 2010. Main Street Now (formerly Main Street News) is the journal of commercial district revitalization published by the National Trust Main Street Center.

Throughout the nation, engaged community members are organizing themselves in new ways to become community entrepreneurs. Often motivated more by mission than capitalistic ambition, community groups are opening new businesses.

Community-owned businesses differ from traditional businesses in that they are motivated by a purpose. They usually arise to fill a void where the marketplace is too slow to act on its own, or the risks appear too high (think decayed downtown). Founders of community-owned businesses see an opportunity which the market has failed to see, and in times when capital to fund new ideas is scarce, community-based entrepreneurship can give life to new business ideas. In many ways, a community-owned business is the same as any other mercantile endeavor: it must satisfy a market need and it must offer the potential to generate a profit.

Community-owned businesses fall into four broad categories:

Cooperative: A communally owned and managed business, operated for the benefit of its members;

The Community Land Use and Economics Group, LLC (CLUE Group)

We help local and state governments, developers, and nonprofits design innovative downtown economic development strategies, cultivate independent businesses, recycle historic buildings, attract young talent, strengthen downtown management programs, and craft planning and land use tools that mitigate sprawl and stimulate town center development.